If you’ve been looking online for a wardrobe update or perhaps flipped through a catalogue or two, you may have noticed that standards for fashion and beauty have been “reimagined.” Far from improving our looks, though, they’ve plunged us toward culture’s primordial abyss; the modern world is in a fashion freefall.
With summer travel ramping up, forays into bad taste will be hitting runways, too, at airports—months ahead of the equally strange looks of Fashion Week. Spend an hour at any big airport—a curbside wait is enough—and you’ll vow to keep your travels closer to home.
Snaking monthly through the Pre-check line—the “better” security route—I’m regularly treated to a catalogue of indelicate sights. Last month was particularly rich. A fuzzy, pink bodysuit stretched around a generously-sized adult female; she was indeed dressed appropriately—but for a Teletubbies set. Another woman’s half shirt managed only a quarter of the job; but she seemed comfortable enough with her ample rolls of tattooed flesh exposed. As an airborne exemplar of “letting it all hang out,” she will doubtless help normalize “people in larger bodies.”
Even for fitter bodies, transgressions abound. Some younger women wore shorts so short they would certainly put unmentionables in contact with the seat. Not to be outdone, young men paraded their underwear, a nod to the sagging rap-gangster act; the silver lining was that their fashion transgressions were limited to the rear.
Here in Atlanta, the crowded plane train transports the whole unsavory scene to the concourses. A septuagenarian man boarded the train in cut-off shorts and a sleeveless rainbow tee; gnarled toes peek from another man’s flip-flops. A plus-sized (or times-sized) lady in a hybrid bikini top and fuzzy slippers stepped on, bound for the Spirit gate, I’d venture. Next came a confused 20-something in a “Protect Your Pronouns” shirt, while another adult hopped on wearing criminally-ugly shoes known as Crocs. Might as well embrace it—these are your fellow travelers; discount looks now fly the discount skies.
I’ll never forget my first plane trip at age 11. I was traveling to Washington, D.C. during its worst June heat, my prize for an essay contest on “What the Constitution Means to Me.” My mom was careful to make sure I dressed “classy” for both the plane and our museum visits so we wouldn’t look like the “riff raff” who (smartly) weren’t wearing pantyhose in the 90-degree swamp. Accordingly, I wore a dress, not a Fetterman hoodie, to a special ceremony. I left with large patches of sweat on my back, but America in my heart, because the virtuous William J. Bennett had shaken my hand.
Orwell’s dystopian prophecies were yet to unfold, so my circa-1984 travelers weren’t yet wearing pajamas or glorified bras to the airport. Travel by plane still called for a modicum of manners and a dose of decorum—things the common man still understood. But somewhere along our cultural odyssey, these polite customs fell into antiquity.
We are now witnessing a scene in the critical theorist version of Revenge of the Nerds. Wisdom and wit are under attack on all sides, with slovenly style elbowing aside the high-achiever vibes of good taste and modesty. Faced with the ascendence of D-student instincts, we now have a Senator dressed as a shop-class flunky and people cavorting at airports in underwear-inspired fashions. All of them still expect to be taken seriously.
During the late 1990’s tech boom, and before my own baby boom, I flew regularly as a technical writer and software trainer. My travel wardrobe was full of suiting—Ann Taylor and such, all part of the innocuous business girl look. Other weekday travelers on my United and Delta flights were similarly dressed, with Friday seeing a more casual crowd settling into the weekend. I rarely saw adult males boarding with sweatpants or sleeveless shirts, nor did I see women wearing lycra jumpsuits; ditto to seeing purse-sized “emotional support” dogs. Coincidentally or not, ultra-low-cost airlines hadn’t yet achieved the reach and ignominy they enjoy now.
By 2000, though, traveler IQs had quietly begun their final descent, tracking the birdbrained trends already warping our schools and entertainment. We started the millennium dodging the “Y2K” bullet, but no consulting genius could stave off what came next. A generation raised in a dumbed-down world made a market for low-cost fares; and democracy brought their wanderlust to the skies.
Walking through airport concourses, I often carry on silent commentary, musing on the culprits behind the crude scenery. Who convinced all these people that full-body lycra is attractive? Is that lady wearing shorts under that? Why does the mom have green hair and the second-grader, a phone? Is that a man in a dress, or a hulking woman? Why would adults travel in matching Star Wars apparel? I sound a bit critical, but I also arrive two hours early, so there’s plenty of time for such questions.
Based on clothes alone, one could blame the fashion industry. Before good taste nosedived on airport runways, it tanked on the Fashion Week runways; and catalogs have expanded more than our busiest airports. Magazines now accommodate super-sized swimsuit models and wide-necked she-males, all wearing mismatched and ill-fitting duds. No longer are svelte bodies and enviable features the face of our fashion scene; freakish and androgynous looks are in higher demand.
But the problems don’t end with fashion crimes, as grave as they often are. The same people who have taken casual to new lows have sunk their behavior with them, turning our airports into bedrooms and wrestling rings. Clothing, after all, is an extension of one’s mind and disposition—a frightening thought if you’re trapped with poor taste in midair.
Attitudes shape behavior, and for this reason we may also point to poisonous slogans. Take Target, for example—always on the cutting edge of democratizing trendy styles and social perversion. Back when Oprah first introduced us, Target promised stylish goods, affordable to the craving masses, without the trademark tackiness of its cheap competitors. It was a beautiful, big-box innovator. But like all market trends, this one eventually went south, too. We should’ve been suspicious all along. “Expect more, pay less” is now the mantra of America’s travelers, too, guaranteeing ready-to-rumble attitudes from coast to coast—and a treasure trove of videos to prove it.
For crude entertainment, dive into the viral videos that document travelers who don’t get their way quickly enough. Who hasn’t watched the airline customer try to beat down a gate agent—wig flying—while confused or amused onlookers film the whole drama? In Atlanta, two women at the Spirit gate fell into an impressive wrestling match, reason unknown. Or, how about the belligerent lady who became enraged by a seat mate wearing MAGA gear? Perhaps the biggest egghead was the man who cussed a crying toddler on his plane, freely throwing F-bombs into his loud tirade.
In truth, though, the blame for our airborne delinquents rests much closer to home. The travelers who achieve new lows for public behavior and attire didn’t emerge from thin air. We must admit that flaccid parenting and meager educations produced the people who now buy tickets, pick outfits, board planes, and often make fools of themselves in the process. Yet still we love to fly, and it shows.
The best antidote is to encourage more people to out dress the slummers and maybe passively shame them. Long shot though!!